Crystal Maze
by WarpedReflection
Summary: Sarah Williams is thrilled to be one of the six contestants in the adventure game show "The Crystal Maze". Her enthusiasm dwindles, though, when she recognises the show's strange new host.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: _I do not own any of the characters, songs nor anything else connected with the movie Labyrinth, they and it belongs solely to the Jim Henson Co. Nor do I own the British game show "The Crystal Maze". The introductory monologue is heavily inspired from the show's in order to keep the general tone of the game. Neither do I own the works mentioned in Italics._

_I have been planning and writing this fic on and off for the past year. Once upon a time I happened to watch an episode of an old game show, and I was subsequently attacked by vicious plot bunnies. This is the outcome. _

* * *

><p><strong>THE CRYSTAL MAZE<strong>

**1993**

Toby had been playing with a friend from soccer practice after school, but when Harry had got picked up by his parents, the restless 7-year old had had to entertain himself in other ways. He jumped around the house singing loudly and out of tune, until Karen ruined her third attempt at making a soufflé for the lawyer soirée the next day and a muffled oath was heard from the kitchen. "TOBY! Why don't you go into the living room and watch some television?!" the suggestion was delivered in a shrill voice and sounded more like it was coming from a crow suffering from a sore throat rather than from Toby's usually very strict and calm mom, but Toby accepted the suggestion gladly. "OK. Thanks mom!"

As he turned the television on, he lay sprawled across the entire couch.

Robert Williams, who had been sitting quietly in an armchair reading his newspaper throughout his wife's ordeal, now raised his eyebrows in surprise of his son's behavior and lowered the paper a little.  
>"I swear he becomes more and more like his sister every day," he murmured and raised the paper again.<p>

"Dad? What's wrong with the TV?"

The TV had briefly shown a rerun of an old _Fraggle Rock_ episode, when the image had flickered and the screen went black. "Try to change the channel, son," Robert directed. Nothing happened. Robert got up from the chair and hit the TV twice.

The screen glitched briefly, but eventually a picture showed up on it.

_A short theme tune is heard and many clips of different persons running through a maze of mirrors or balancing on wooden boards over a chasm or solving different challenges are shown. The words 'THE CRYSTAL MAZE' appears._

"Look, dad! It works! Thanks!"

_An attractive and slim, albeit eccentrically dressed, blond man stands in front of a gigantic crystal ball in a blue tinted room. The blue eyed man flashes his pointed canines in a slightly unnerving smile directed at the audience.  
>"Hello," his smooth British baritone resounds throughout the room. "My name is Jareth and I am to be your guide through the crystal maze."<em>

"Huh. I had no idea we had any British channels," Robert exclaimed puzzled. Toby quickly shushed him.

_"Six brave adventurers have gathered here to try their wits and courage against my formidable maze and the thirteen fiendish games and challenges, which lie in wait for them within the walls of the maze. If they are clever," he pauses briefly. "Or maybe just very, _very_ lucky," he almost sounds bitter. "They might be given the opportunity to conquer the maze and win prizes one could only __**wish**__ of conjuring in one's wildest __**dreams**__. For every correctly completed game or challenge, the team is awarded a crystal. The more crystals they win, the more time the team will be given in the center of the maze, where the prizes are won." He laughs darkly. "But remember, ladies and gentlemen, that even though you get to the center, you might never get out again."_

Robert, despite being a grown man and a solicitor who had seen more than his fair share of hardened criminals and even been threatened by clients once or twice, had shivered at the thin man's sinister laugh. Toby, however, was completely drawn to the strange man's unusual charms.

_"Let me introduce you to the contestants this week: With us we have John Rattle, 41, a building constructor from London. Jessica Daehl, 18, a student from Southampton. Peter Siegel, 24, a gardener from London. Tom Watson, 37, a teacher from West Sussex. Kate Harris, 39, a secretary from Bath and last, but _definitely _not the least: Sarah Williams, 22, an American who studies in London. Our first American guest, I believe. _How immensely exiting_," the last part of his monologue is delivered in a crisp and sarcastic tone mixed with a bored yawn. _

Two voices rang out simultaneously in the Williams' living room.

"It's _Sarah_! How _cool_!" and  
>"KAREN! GET IN HERE THIS INSTANT!"<p>

Karen protested, but Robert waved his hand dismissively and bellowed, "TO HELL WITH THE SOUFFLÉS!"


	2. Chapter 2

**A MONTH BEFORE IN LONDON**

Ever since her journey through the Labyrinth, Sarah had felt like a big part of her was missing and Sarah being who she was - independent, stubborn and never one to sit idle by when she could act instead - did whatever she could to fill that gap.

One of the many things Sarah had learned on her journey was that Toby wasn't nearly as bad as she at first had made him out to be. In fact, he was actually a lovely little brother. Annoying at times, certainly, but then he would do something endearing and she would immediately forget why he irritated her. All in all, she had come to love the little bugger these last few years in a way she never had imagined she could, when he was brought home from the hospital as a baby. The two of them grew close because of what they (or rather, Sarah) had gone through.

She had also discovered many new things about herself on her journey.

She found that she had thrived in the labyrinth fighting against untold dangers, surviving unnumbered hardships, finding her way through the twisted labyrinth, manipulating and befriending mythical creatures, conquering the Goblin King and all the while flirting with danger and destiny.

She had felt adrenaline and courage course through her veins. _She had never felt as alive_.

She then realized that she _needed_ danger and hardship in her life. The boring monotonousness of everyday existence was driving her nuts and by the time she graduated from high school it simply got too much. To get a little change in scenery she applied to a university in England.

It was her friend, Lauren, whom she had met at indoor climbing and had gone bungee jumping with once or twice, who had mentioned a game show that needed adventurous contestants.

Sarah remembered looking skeptically at Lauren and being about to demand to be told more about it before she enrolled, but when Lauren had challenged her courage, Sarah's temper flared and she didn't hesitate in calling the TV-station.

* * *

><p>Two days later an application form came by post for both Sarah and Lauren.<p>

2 months passed before Sarah got a call from the TV station. She was chosen to go on the program. Lauren wasn't. Sarah was excited with being elected, but she wasn't thrilled by the fact that Lauren and millions of other people would watch her make a fool of herself on national television, as she undoubtedly would.

She was scheduled to arrive at the TV station the day before the show was to be shot, in order to meet with the other contestants beforehand.

* * *

><p>Sarah was confident, but slightly apprehensive, when she was led into a meeting room in the station's office in Mayfair.<p>

It was a well-lit, but small room that Sarah entered. Four of the other contestants were already present and sitting at an oval table. The male secretary, Simon, who had shown her to the room, led her to a chair beside a man in his thirties, and left the room subsequently.

"Hello, I'm Sarah Williams," Sarah introduced herself to her neighbor with an outstretched hand. The blond haired man smiled friendly to her and shook her hand. "I'm Tom. Watson. This is Jessica," he pointed at a red haired girl with small, brown eyes, who was a couple of years younger than Sarah. Jessica waved enthusiastically at the sight of another young, female contestant. Tom rolled his eyes and continued. "That is John," a dark haired man with crooked teeth, "and that is Kate," a plump, brown haired woman, who looked to be about Karen's age.

The door opened once more and a handsome young man with raven hair was led in and seated himself next to Sarah. He winked at her and introduced himself as Peter. Sarah smiled charmingly back at him. When the group introduction was repeated once more, Simon sat down on the chair at the end of table and began to inform them of what was to come in the morning.

"You will be driven to the set by the station's cars, where you will meet the host of the program. Then the shooting will commence and the games begin," Simon smiled at them all. "Your objective is to gather as many crystals as you can. If you fail to get out of the game rooms in time, you are locked in and sent back to the beginning. Kate is the captain of your team and John is the vice-captain. That means that all decisions are taken by Kate, but if she's locked in – then John is captain. If John also gets locked in, then a new captain is chosen by the host. Got it?" Everybody nodded.

"But who is this host-guy? Isn't it that bald guy from _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_?" Jessica blurted excited. John rolled his eyes. "What? He's _famous_!" Jessica defended herself.

"To answer your question," Simon answered. "No, we've had a change of host recently. But don't worry. The new host knows what he's doing." Simon smiled again. "Well, alright. I'll see you all tomorrow at the set. Have a nice day." And he left. The soon-to-be team parted amiably and Peter walked Sarah home to her dorm.

* * *

><p><strong>THE FOLLOWING DAY<strong>

Sarah was the last of the six contestants to cross the threshold to the set. She bumped her chin into Peter's back when he stopped abruptly. Sarah rubbed her chin and peeked over Peter's shoulder in order to get a glimpse of what had made him halt. "You have _got_ to be kidding!" Sarah whispered disbelievingly.

The set was decorated in a way that clearly resembled a large fairytale garden. When she noticed the authentic-looking exotic flowers, she couldn't help but think of her friend Hoggle. She suddenly felt very uneasy.

"Isn't the set amazing, Sarah? Look at the walls! And that lake! It almost feels like being in a fairytale! I bet we're sharing set with that new fantasy movie they're making." Peter said amazed. The other contestants 'oooh'ed and 'aaah'ed appreciatively and Jessica squealed. Sarah swallowed thickly and answered Peter by nodding and trying to smile reassuringly at him.

"Ah! There you are!" Simon stood 30 yards away and shouted at them. "Come over here! I have someone you should meet." Peter, Tom, Kate and John walked ahead, but Sarah was manhandled by Jessica and they lagged behind. "Sarah, look how everything sparkles!" Jessica exclaimed which made Sarah look more closely around. Everything _did _sparkle. The walls, the ceiling, the floor even the water in the lake. Sarah felt very apprehensive now and wondered briefly at what point of her life she had gone _completely_ insane. "I'm really not that keen on things that sparkle."

As they greeted the grey haired man, Simon had wanted them to meet; Sarah asked him whether he was the host. The man's belly shook with laughter. "Bless you child! No, I am Edward Kensington, the show's producer. Pleased to meet you," he said and studied her in a curious way. Sarah looked at him searchingly, but he quickly turned his attention back to Simon.

"Peter?" Sarah asked quietly. "Do you get the feeling that they are hiding who the host is from us, too?" Peter chuckled. "I suppose they are, but don't you think it's because they want to surprise us. Who knows, it might be someone famous!" Sarah calmed a bit and felt a lot better as she hit his arm playfully. "You begin to sound like Jessica," she teased. Peter laughed loudly. "At least _I_ am not-" He was interrupted by everyone going silent. He turned away from Sarah, to look at the man who approached.

"_Well, well, well, what have we here_?"

* * *

><p>(AN): Dun dun duunn.

I have tweeked the rules slightly - in "The Crystal Maze", when you are locked in you can be bought out by sacrificing one of your crystals. You can't do that in my version. If you are locked in the team just has to continue.  
>The previous host mentioned is of course the awesome Richard O'Brien (famous for "Rocky Horror"). If you are interested in the original game show I would suggest watching some episodes on youtube. They're great!<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**INTRODUCTIONS**

Jessica almost swooned. Peter, John and Tom stood awestruck. Kate was fingering her disarrayed hair. Sarah was… almost in a vegetative state despite the fact that she was able to stand upright.

Simon, who seemed to be used to the remarkable effect this man had on new people, chuckled and introduced the team to the game show's host. "Team, this is -" Sarah closed her eyes. She had known from the moment she heard _that_ voice; she knew the words he had spoken and she knew who would be standing behind her. "- Jareth." _What the hell was _he _doing here_?

She turned towards her old archenemy calmly. Or so she hoped.

"These are the new contestants," Simon said to Jareth. He raised an eyebrow that seemed to say "_Oh really? How absolutely amusing_," despite having an expression on his face that said otherwise. "This is: Kate, Tom, John, Jessica, Peter and Sarah."

Jareth turned to face her as her name was mentioned. "Ah." He looked her over and she noticed that the corner of his lip was twitching. _Why that little…! Dare he laugh at me?! After all he put me through?!_  
>Sarah's temper flared and she was about to publically confront him, when Peter tugged her sleeve, silently asking her to calm down. She took a deep breath and the Goblin King smirked triumphantly at her. "I see you haven't changed all that much in six years, <em>Sarah<em>. I wonder if you will be able to cope with the stress of the Maze." _That cheeky little fairy!_

She snarled at him. "You haven't changed all that much yourself," she was about to add"_Goblin King_" to her insult, but thought better of it.

And he hadn't. He still was infuriating and strange. He even looked the same as he had all those years ago. Blond, lean and dangerous. With mismatched eyes, thin lips, long feathery hair and weird upswept eyebrows. For God's sake, the man even still wore skin tight pants! And nobody thought he looked out of place? Maybe this game show was freakier than she had expected it to be.

Simon looked interested at their conversation and was about to ask a question, but by then Jessica had come to her senses and beat him to it. "Do you two, like, know each other?"

Sarah looked at the Goblin King and left it up to him to explain. "We've met once… a couple of years ago. Didn't really get along. Sarah was a very disagreeable teenager who didn't know her rightful place."  
>Sarah snorted at his gall.<p>

She desperately wanted to hit him. He tilted his head knowingly.

Simon stepped in between them before it came to blows. "Alright, but try to be civil toward each other in front of the cameras," he turned to the King of the Goblins and continued in a more quiet tone. "Unless it makes good television, that is." Jareth smirked and replied, "of course."

Simon then directed the team to the backstage area, where they would get their make-up done and given colored suits to wear.

* * *

><p>"You looked like you were about to hit him every time he opened his mouth," Peter stated as they sat next to each other while two ladies attacked their faces with oversized powder puffs.<br>"I was. He's a big, insufferable git."

"Huh." He looked at her in a searching manner. "Do you know him well?" he asked almost innocently. Sarah wasn't really sure what to answer to that. "I've only met him once before. I thought I knew what to expect from him, but then… he's here, where I couldn't possibly have imagined he'd be and… I don't know. But I _do_ know that he turns _everything _into a game and that he hates losing. But he underestimated me last time. He might do it again."

Peter just stared at her like she just declared she was born on Mars. "I have got to win over that faery," she mumbled.  
>"Do you mean that he's gay?" Peter looked relieved for a second, but quickly covered it up. "I mean, that would explain the pants and all, but seriously… the way he looked at you, when you were about to kill him back there… didn't seem that gay to me." Sarah was about to demand to be told what he meant, but she was given some clothes and led away from Peter and into a changing room.<p>

* * *

><p>"This is too creepy to be a coincidence," Sarah mumbled as she studied her reflection in the mirror. The green bodysuit fit her perfectly – that wasn't the problem. It was the color that bothered her. Its shade was disturbingly close to that of her eyes. On any other day it would have been a mere trifle, a coincident she would ignore and forget, but the meeting with Jareth less than an hour before had put her on pins.<p>

"The only possible purpose of this suit is to unsettle me. Well, I already am unsettled. Congratulations, your majesty," she muttered.

She shivered all over at the thought of the position she had put herself in. What horrible and terrible things could she be in for before the thirteen games were over?

* * *

><p>As she reentered the makeup area, Tom, John and Kate were already changed and waiting for the rest. Tom was dressed in a blue suit, Kate in a purple suit and John squirmed in his too large orange one. "Hi," Sarah said and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "What's the matter with John?" she whispered dramatically to Tom, who replied in kind. "He claims his suit is cursed. It's too itchy and too warm and too big, poor chap." "They didn't have anything else he could wear," Kate supplied. Sarah chuckled and agreed with Tom, "poor guy."<br>Peter came out of the dressing room soon after, dressed in red, followed by Jessica sometime later, whose yellow suit clashed horribly with her bright red hair.

Kate slipped into her role of team captain and led the way back to the set.


	4. Chapter 4

**THE BEGINNING **

The team waited with Simon outside a large pair of grey double doors. "Jareth is currently filming the show's introduction behind these doors. When he's done, he'll come out here and the _real_ show can begin." Sarah strained her ears in order to overhear Jareth's monologue through the thick doors, but heard near to nothing. "Can you hear anything?" she asked Peter. "I… I think he's saying our names and ages. Yes, he is. He just mentioned my name, age and profession." He laid his ear against the door. "Now it's Tom…. And Kate, I think it is… And now _you_...," Peter glanced at her. "Someone's yelling 'cut' in there," he added and they all moved a step back from the door.

As the heavy doors slammed open wide, a gust of glittery wind burst through and enveloped the contestants, who all coughed violently.

"_Morons_!" a well-known voice yelled at the two workmen, who by accident had turned a big fan – (added by Jareth for dramatic effect at the introductory monologue, Simon told them) – toward the double doors. "Sorry, mister!" the two workmen's uncharacteristically squeaky voices exclaimed.

Simon went in to check if everything was alright.

"Are you all sure you want to do this?" Sarah quickly asked her team when they were alone. "Maybe you should all leave. It could get dangerous." Tom, Peter, Jessica, John and Kate stared at her disbelievingly. "What do you mean, Sarah? It's just a television program – they can't hurt us," Tom said reasonably. "Relax Sarah, you look all strung up!" Jessica said calmly and stroked Sarah's arm. "Don't you want to win the prizes? Come on, Sarah! Cheer up, it'll be fun!" The other members of the team agreed and nodded. "But- You don't understand! I _know_ Jareth and-"

A chuckle was heard from right behind her. "Oh, you do, do you?" Sarah closed her eyes in defeat. She felt a tendril of his long hair brush her chin and knew his lips where less than an inch away from her ear. "You don't know me half as well as I would have liked, _precious_," he said quietly and moved away. "Let's enter the crystal maze, shall we?" he said in a much louder voice directed at her teammates, who followed his lead.

They went down a hallway that led to a set of double doors identical to the ones they just left. As they approached it, the doors opened slowly. On the other side of the door an old tunnel filled with doors of different shapes and sizes waited for them.

Jessica, who had made sure to be the one closest to Jareth, looked searchingly around. "Where are the cameras?" Jareth didn't look at her as he answered. "They are hidden in the walls."

"Oh! Okay," Jessica said. Peter, who had walked next to Sarah, studied the nearest red brick wall. He shrugged and went back to Sarah. "I didn't see anything, but they're probably just well hidden or placed somewhere else on this set." Sarah doubted it, but didn't let it show.

It was a round brick tunnel with a realistically dirty floor they went through, with what seemed like real, glittery cobwebs dangling from the ceiling.

Jareth stopped in front of an approximately 3 foot tall green door and the team gathered around him. "Behind this door one of you will find the first challenge. The one you choose to go in must figure out how to retrieve the crystal inside and come out with it before 3 minutes have elapsed. If you fail to come out you'll be locked in, but you are allowed to forfeit the crystal by exiting the game room before the time is up. Purple?" He looked directly at Kate in her purple suit, who fretted at his intense gaze. "It's Kate," she said nervously. "Yes, yes." He waved his hand as if to signal that her name was of no importance. "You are the appointed captain. Who do you think should enter the room?" Kate looked at the other contestants and shrugged. "Tom?"

Jareth smiled ever so slightly. "Blue it is. It's this way," he opened the door for Tom and added, "You have three minutes starting now." A watch with thirteen hours appeared above the door and the second hand began to move.


	5. Chapter 5

**THE FIRST GAME**

"Where the devil did _that_ come from?" Peter exclaimed. "Maybe it came out of the wall?" Kate reasoned. Sarah merely looked at the Goblin King.

As Tom entered the room through the door, Jareth motioned to a monitor-like oval crystal sphere that was slowly but securely being lowered from a gap in the ceiling. The sphere showed Tom's progress in the room.

Sarah walked up to Jareth and asked him quietly, so as to not alert the others, "What are you playing at, Goblin King? What do you want with us?" Jareth smiled condescendingly, but did not answer her question. He posed one to her instead. "Are you up for a rematch, Sarah Williams?" The mismatched pair of eyes narrowed and a crooked smile that showed off his pointed teeth lingered on his lips.

Sarah, taken aback by his words, took an unconscious step backwards. She stood like a deer in front of the proverbial headlights with a dazed expression on her face. "You have no power over me," she said in a husky tone

A short bark of laughter. "Say it like you mean it next time, precious."

Sarah was about to contradict him, but was distracted by the agitated shouts from her teammates.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – THE UNITED STATES<strong>

_"You have three minutes starting now." _

_A man in his thirties with strawberry blond hair enters a yellow bricked room. The floor is covered in sand and old Egyptian signs are drawn on the walls. The door closes behind him, and as he takes the first step into the room, the ceiling slowly begins to descend. He looks up. Terror is painted on his face. He looks around in panic._

"Oh dear! It's descending!" Karen exclaimed.  
>"Where's the crystal he's supposed to find?" Robert asked. "I can't see it anywhere."<br>"Of course not, Dad! That would be too easy!"

_His hands roam the walls in search of something, but the search seems to be futile so far. The ceiling closes in on him and he is forced to bend forward a tad. He begins to shuffle his feet in the sand. He thinks for a second. The faint cries of his teammates can be heard through the door. "Try searching the sand on the floor!" a young, male voice shouted._

"Come on, you can do it!" Toby shouted at the television.

_The strawberry blond Brit flings himself to the ground and digs through the sand with his fingers. "You have one minute left," Jareth's voice resounds throughout the small chamber. The man looks up at the approaching ceiling and panic is once more visible on his face. He continues digging, but his teammates shouts at him. "GET OUT! GET OUT!" The man hurries to crawl back to the door he came from and beats frantically on it. "Hurry!"_

_The door swings open and the man flings himself out of the room. A hand reaches for him – wordlessly asking to assist him. He grabs it and the owner of the hand (a young, dark haired woman in a green suit) pulls him into an upright position._

"IT'S SARAH!" Toby bellowed. Karen shushed him, but smiled at the adoration in his eyes.

_"Blimey, that was close," the man says and wipes his brow. "And I wasn't even close to finding the crystal." "No matter," the host of the show says indifferently. "There are plenty of games left to prove your worth against. Shall we continue?"_


	6. Chapter 6

**THE SECOND GAME**

"Are you quite sure you're OK?" Sarah asked Tom, who was brushing sand of his suit. "I'm alright. I'm just still in shock. It was pretty terrifying back in there."

"I can imagine," Sarah said as she thought of the cleaners chasing her through a tunnel much like the one they presently were in.

"Twelve games to go!" Jessica squealed excitedly and clapped her hands.

The group stopped in front of a huge door and Jareth asked Kate once more, who she thought should enter the room. "Umm… John?"

John shrugged and went closer to the 7 foot tall door made of steel. John snorted at the look of the door and eyed Jareth in a funny way. Sarah noticed John's onceover of the Goblin King, the widening of the brunette's eyes and another snort as he eyed Jareth's tight pants. Sarah found it hilarious, but bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. She judged her decision to be wise as she noticed the fire in Jareth's cold eyes. "Be careful not to hurt yourself in there," Jareth narrowed his eyes and added coldly, "You have three minutes. Starting _now_."

On Jareth's command the door opened by retreating into the ceiling slowly. Unfortunately for John and the other contestants the game room was filled with water and it streamed out from underneath the door. When the gap between the floor and the ascending metal door was sufficiently big John crawled in. The door slammed shut behind him.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – THE UNITED STATES<strong>

_The man in a baggy orange suit struggles for air. He kicks his feet and waves with his arms in order to float to the surface, but eventually he reaches the 5 inches of air between the water and the ceiling. When his breathe normally once more, he takes in a big breath and goes underwater – _He's here to find the crystal, and he will find it! _The thoughts and his determination are plain to read on his face. With clumsy strokes he dives to the bottom. The floor is sandy with realistic seaweed swaying rhythmically and small shells scattered all over. A green trout swims by John and slaps his astonished face with its sticky tail. John looks after the strange fish, but merely shrugs and continues his strokes. _

_Just as a school of small fishes gently caresses his left foot he notices a gigantic open seashell with a shiny, glassy pearl in the middle. It takes him a couple of seconds to realize that it must be the crystal. He swims towards it quickly – he seems almost hypnotically drawn towards it. He sees a flash of orange in the crystalline pearl, but believes it to be his own reflection. Seaweed wraps possessively around his feet and ankles and a big bubble of air leaves his mouth in surprise._

Toby had laughed loudly when the trout had slapped John's face, but was now sitting glued to the spot in surprise. "Come on, John!" he cheered bravely, even though he reached out for Karen's hand.

_"You have one minute left," the by now familiar voice rings out. John kicks the seaweed off in panic, as it tightens its grip. Another bubble of air leaves his mouth, as he yells out in pain. It looks as if he has swallowed some water and struggles to breathe. The brick-walled room suddenly begins to shake, as if the room is able to feel his pain. The shaking enables him to free his feet and he swims with violent strokes toward the door, forfeiting the crystal pearl. As his lungs run out of air he manages to knock on the steel door._

Karen clutched Toby's hand and drew his head to her side, effectively covering his eyes. "Did he die?" Toby asked quietly, while turning his head.

_The orange-clad man slips through the door in an unconscious state. His team surrounds him and gets him to cough up the water he swallowed. Eventually he opens his eyes and gasps for air. When he once again is fully conscious, the only thing he says is: "huh."_

_After some time the man stands on his feet, supported by the two other men. The dark haired girl glares openly at the host, but does not say anything._


	7. Chapter 7

**THE THIRD GAME**

Kate looked over the group and elected Sarah for the third game. She felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach, after all it was Jareth who had orchestrated this, but she nodded, sending her team a brave smile. She had braved and conquered a labyrinth and she had an obligation to her team. For some reason she felt responsible for bringing them into this danger – and she would never give up and let Jareth win.

"So, what do I do?" She asked the otherworldly creature pretending to be their guide. Jareth smirked, and gestured to an elegant door made out of glass… or crystal. "You have three minutes to obtain the crystal behind these doors and return with it. Simple."

"A piece of cake, perhaps?" she asked charmingly, while batting her eyes in an exaggerated fashion.

"Perhaps," he said in an annoyed voice, while baring his teeth, "perhaps this little slice is more to your liking?"

He waved his hand in a dramatic way towards the door. "It's further than you think, Sarah," he said, provoking a stranger sense of deja-vu. "And time is short," he whispered in her ear and slapped her butt, making her jump into the room. "Three minutes, my lovely. Or your little team will be leaving without you. Such a pity…"

The doors shut wobblingly behind her. Apparently they were a tad fragile.

The room Sarah entered was a yellow bricked tunnel, just as the one she left some seconds ago, and it stretched endlessly. She started jogging until she heard a tinkling at her feet. A crystal ball lay at her feet. As she bent down to grab it, it started to roll away from her. She wondered whether she would find Jareth dressed as a beggar at the end of the tunnel, but she decided to follow it. The faster she ran, the faster it rolled and the further she went into the straight tunnel with no end. She stopped abruptly and watched it stop along with her. Maybe she wasn't supposed to chase it? Maybe she was supposed to summon it. What did Jareth do in the tunnel? He had held out a beggar's cup and it had _jumped by itself _into it.

She held out her hand expectantly, mimicking Jareth's air of impatience. "Well?" she raised an eyebrow, willing it to fly into her hand. And it did.

It was both heavier and smoother than she would have thought, but it was beautiful.

"That was nothing tra la la, Goblin King," she said impishly into the empty room.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – AMERICA<strong>

_The young, brown haired man frets a lot after the girl goes in. He walks a bit away to calm his nerves. He turns left, down a smaller side tunnel. Out of nowhere, the host suddenly appears before him. "Oh. Hi," he says with a small grin on his handsome face. "You felt like going for a walk too?"_

_"Why, _yes_, Hedgewart. I did." The host crosses his arms and looks at him searchingly. The man chuckles. "The name's Peter." He offers his hand, but the host ignores it. The man lowers the hand self-consciously. The host smiles in a mocking way. _

_"You've lost your head over that girl, haven't you?" The host tilts his head, deceptively sympathetic. "Sarah?" the brunette asks and looks away with a faraway expression on his face. "Yeah, she's great."_

_The blond man raises his strange eyebrows. "Do you _really _believe you have a chance with her? A girl like that?" The brunette stumbles back a bit at the sudden display of animosity. "No, not really," he explains, cowering. "But we're friendly and have fun together, so I thought-"_

_"You thought that you had a chance. You said it yourself… You're friendly. Why should you gain her affections, when you aren't even _friends_?"_

_The young man seems completely taken aback. _

_"Let me tell you something," the host says quietly and beckons the man to lean in with a long, delicate finger. "If you two ever kiss… I'll make you a prince," he promises darkly. "You will?" Peter looks perplexed. "Of what?" The host either doesn't reply or does so out of the cameras range._

_The two of them goes back to the others._


	8. Chapter 8

**THE FOURTH GAME**

Sarah had given Jareth the crystal when she came out and he, with a bitter expression on his face, placed it in a small drawer by the side of the drawer. "Your crystals will be returned to you when you reach the final game." Sarah looked at him skeptically, but smiled to herself. "No, I suppose you don't have any pockets in those pants."

Jareth ignored her, but Peter and Jessica doubled over in laughter.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT - AMERICA<strong>

_"I guess I'm next," the team captain volunteers and slowly approaches the host and the black door behind him._

_"In this game you're not allowed under any circumstances to touch the red part of the floor. If you do, you'll be locked in and you'll be of no help whatsoever for your team in the next foreseeable future," he says with a small grin on his face. The homely woman in her forties shyly smiles back, but her eyes shows signs of internal panic._

_"You have three minutes to locate and retrieve the crystal within." _

_The woman walks into the room and the door closes behind her. The team watches her on another crystalline sphere that has descended from the ceiling. She is standing on the only grey tiles in the room – the remainder of the floor is covered in flaming red tiles. A wooden pole above her stretches across the entire room. She studies the room carefully, but finds it empty besides the pole and a metallic box with a big padlock placed at the opposite wall, conveniently close to where the pole ends. She hears one of the team mates shouting to her, through the door, that the key hangs from the ceiling in a hook halfway across the room. "Oh," she replies and starts to lever herself and cling to the wooden pole. She is close to touching the floor, but manages to swing her body from side to side and wrap her legs around the pole like a koala. She moves steadily and slowly toward the end of the room._

_Her teammates cheer her on._

_When she is halfway, she sees the key hanging on a hook. She carefully takes it off the hook with one hand, while she steadies herself on the pole with the other. "Got it!" she cries triumphantly and another cheer erupts from the other side of the door. She continues down the pole until she makes it to the wall._

_She notices that the box is placed two feet above the ending of the pole. She sighs loudly, but uses the wall to steady her as she stands up. Her hand clutches a brick in the wall as she unlocks the box._

_"You have one minute left," Jareth's disembodied voice declares. _

_Kate fumbles with the key at first, but after a few seconds the door opens. A crystal lies within. She reaches out for it, but worry fills her eyes as she notices a glow surrounding the orb. The worry disappeares within seconds and she grabs the crystal quickly. She's in a hurry to get out and thus, decides to balance on the pole. She inches her way forward and sweat forms on her brow. The crystal feels heavier and heavier in her hand. It has become difficult to balance for her. She draws in breaths rapidly trying to keep calm – and fails horribly._

_When she looks down, the combined efforts of the heaviness of the orb and her own sweaty palm leads her to drop the crystal to the ground. _

* * *

><p>As Sarah watched it fall down on the screen, it felt like it was in slow motion. When the crystal hit the red tiles it <em>popped<em> like a bubble and a loud alarm went off. The door was barred from the inside. "KATE!" Tom shouted. Jessica yelped in surprise.

Sarah took a peek at Jareth during this, but his countenance told her nothing. "I'm afraid she has been locked in. The floor has been touched and your friend is gone." A horrible, twisted smile showed on his face for a minute, but disappeared quickly.

"What!" Peter yelled and looked at Sarah.

"Wait a minute!" Sarah protested. "You told her that _she_ couldn't touch the red part of the floor. You never said that the _crystal_ couldn't touch the floor!" Sarah said triumphantly. "That's _cheating_!"

The Goblin King's face was carefully blank, but he sported a crooked smile. "I am hardly cheating, dear Sarah," he replied drily. "I could be described as being a bit _misleading_ at times, perhaps even outright deceitful, but I never cheat. The floor was not meant to be touched, it was and now she has to deal with the consequences of her actions," he waved his hand absently and began to walk away.

Sarah felt something like cold fingers trail down her spine as Jareth's dark bark of laughter resounded in the tunnel.


	9. Chapter 9

**THE BRIDGE**

Sarah, Peter, Jessica, Tom and John held their distance from Jareth as they wearily followed him through the tunnel. As they reached the abrupt dead end, Jareth swirled around to face the team. The longest wisps of his unruly hair swung as well, but as it calmed, Sarah couldn't help but notice how the mullet-like mop framed his sharped angled face with unsuspected gentleness.**  
><strong>The gentleness she had perceived stood, of course, in dire contrast to his true nature. Any illusion of gentleness disappeared as he opened his mouth and spoke.

"In order to reach the next part of the game, you will have to _find it_ first… It is situated behind this wall," he said and tapped the end wall. A Chesire cat-like grin split his face – "See you on the other side."

Sarah kept glancing back at the tunnel – maybe she could find another way out. She didn't like the thought of letting her teammate stay locked in. But she couldn't really do anything. Anyway, Kate would have wanted them to continue the game. Hopefully she could trust what Simon had said – that she would be brought back to the beginning.

When she turned back to the wall, she saw Jessica running towards it – shoulder first. "Ow," she said rubbing her shoulder. "That didn't help at all!"

Tom grinned at Jessica. "It's all 'act first, think later' with you, eh?" Jessica smiled at herself. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Maybe it opens when you say a codeword," Peter ventured

"'Open, open, sesame'?" Tom tried. Nothing happened.

"_Mellon_," Sarah tried. Nothing happened. Everyone turned and looked at her funnily. "Hey, it works in _Lord of the Rings, _okay?" she defended herself.

"I wouldn't have thought she was a fantasy person," Jessica whispered quietly to Peter who shrugged.

John was rolling his eyes and grunted loudly as if to say "enough!" and tried pushing the wall. He managed to push a few of the bricks loose, though. And before too long the entire team began to push away the bricks and after some time they had made a hole in the wall big enough to climb through.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – AMERICA <strong>

_On the other side of the wall, the team is faced with an old bridge without railings, with several planks missing._

_"Sarah?" The youngest man on the team calls out to the girl in front of him as he watches the others walk across the bridge without looking down. The young, dark haired woman turns toward her companion "Yes?" she asks. The normally slightly cheeky guy has a pained expression on his face. "I'm terribly scared of heights. I- I don't think that I can…" he stutters. The brunette's brow furrows in thought for a second, but then she leans in and whispers something in the scared man's ear that makes the brunette smile for a short while. "Come on," she says calmly and offers him her hand. "Things aren't always what they seem in this place." She smiles for herself. "It'll be alright. I promise," she continues._

_Sarah leads on as the pair of them inches their way across the ramshackle bridge. The girl keeps an eye on the missing planks in front of her feet, so he does not have to look down. The quiet man, dressed in the orange jumpsuit, walks a couple of feet in front of them. He does not notice a big gap between the planks and his left foot falls through. He drops down to his knees and clutches the ends of the plank on which he sits. The entire bridge swings violently at the motion. "Look at me, Peter, look at _me_," Sarah commands in a gentle fashion as he screeches. She tightens the grip on his hand._

_The quiet man, John, rises again slowly. As he draws his foot up from the gap, his shoe comes off and falls down. A gentle 'splosh' is heard as the shoe eventually hits the water surface far beneath them. "Was wet already," he mutters, shrugs and walks on. "Why did you want to be in this show?" she asks to distract him from the splash of the shoe. "Maybe I don't look like it," he gulps. "But I'm actually quite a scaredy-cat. I applied because I wanted to challenge myself. I must admit it already seems a lot more dangerous than I thought it would be."_

_"I'll try to help you," she assured him. He looks puzzled. "That's what friends do," she said._

_"_Well, well, then. There go a couple of suckers,_" a high-pitched cackling voice echoes as she finally helps the guy off the bridge. They embrace._

* * *

><p>The other side of the bridge was a beautiful, sparkling forest, wildly different from the tunnel they just came from. The only possible way forward was following a path leading into the cluster of trees.<p>

"I guess we are going this way, team!" Tom said and led on. Sarah and Peter walked together and John and Jessica walked together. Sarah and Peter laughed a bit at the funny pair in front of them. The small and lively young girl and the enormous and quiet middle-aged man. "It's kinda strange isn't it? That Jessica and John get on so well?" Peter mused. Sarah merely laughed. She thought they were cute together. "I think it's mainly based on Jess' fascination with having a friend that listens but rarely speaks."

Peter laughed with her.


	10. Chapter 10

**THE FIFTH GAME**

They found Jareth waiting for them outside a small, humble-looking cottage just next to the path.

"Welcome!" Jareth said warmly and pointed at the cottage door. "Are you ready to play again? Whose turn is it?" Jareth's eyes were directed at Peter while he spoke and Tom looked confused between the two.

"Well," Tom said and scratched his neck. "Peter? I guess it's your turn?" The goblin king smiled subtly. Peter looked slightly anxious. Sarah patted his shoulder and whispered: "It'll be alright" in his ear. Peter visibly straightened and shared a meaningful look with Sarah.

Jareth's eyes narrowed as Peter calmly approached the small door. The calm dissipated somewhat when Jareth didn't say anything or opened the door.

"So… do I just walk in, or?..." Jareth raised an eyebrow in fake curiosity. "Are we waiting for something?..." Jareth didn't reply. Sarah glared at the Goblin King and politely asked him to get on with it. Jareth smiled beastly and said, "just turn the doorknob," to Peter. Peter's hand rested on the knob as he asked "three minutes?" to which Jareth nodded. The doorknob was turned.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – AMERICA<strong>

_The young, dark haired man in the red suit enters the white walled cottage. It's completely empty except for two doors in the opposite wall. The doors are guarded by two strange creatures hiding behind wooden shields engraved with runes – each of them have two heads, five hands and three feet. The man shakes his head and his eyes widen. "What is this?" he breathes. The two guards cackle menacingly and explain themselves while interrupting each other constantly: "We are the crystal guards-" says one, "and behind one of these doors you will find the crystal," continues the other. "Behind the other you will find rotten cabbage leaves," the first says._

_"Ba-ba-ba-boom" both say dramatically._

_"How do I know which door is which?" he asks._

_"You may only ask one of us one question." "But you should know - one of us always speak the truth-" "And the other one always lies-" "He's the liar, listen to me-" "Oooh, that's a lie!"_

_His teammates look at his progress through two grime covered windows. The dark haired girl's mouth is open and it looks as if she's trying to communicate with him, but nothing is heard._

_The camera shifts – now we see the people outside the cottage yelling to him. The girl screams: "ask one what the other one would say!" She almost bangs her fist against the window – but the host catches it. "Tut tut tut, Sarah. It's _his _game. It wouldn't be _fair_ to help him." Sarah glares openly at him and bares her teeth while growling softly. Jareth looks surprised at this, but surprise quickly turns to laughter._

_The camera shifts back to the dark haired man, who hasn't heard anything and looks completely lost. He takes a deep breath and asks the one on the right: "Where's the crystal?"_

_"In my mum's house!" he quickly responds and the creatures cackle._

_Peter's face can easily be read: "What?"_

_The host's voice is heard within the cottage. "You have one minute left."_

_He shifts anxiously – he's panicking. "Well, then… You're the liar, so _you_ must be guarding the wrong door! That was easy!" He steps forward as both guards step aside. He opens the left door guarded by the truthful one._

"Is that right?" Toby asks his dad, who is looking puzzled. "I don't know. I never understood it. Although, I think he should have done what Sarah said instead."

_The man is covered in rotten cabbage._

_"Shit," he says and looks back at his teammates through the window – they are signaling him to hurry out and he does. He only makes it through the door in time, because he throws himself out._

_The camera slowly pans from his face in the dirt to the man with the pointy boots, lean body and 80's haircut standing above him. "What a pity," the host says with a big smile on his face as he flicks off some cabbage leaves with his boot._


	11. Chapter 11

**THE SIXTH GAME **

Jareth had led them further into the forest that darkened around them with every step they took. Tom whistled when Jessica pointed it out. "They sure went all in on the sets here. It looks very real!" Peter touched the bark of a nearby tree. "It's definitely real. I'd eat my hat to have trees like this."

Sarah in turn became more uneasy the farther they entered the Crystal Maze. It looked exactly as the forest in the Labyrinth. She and Peter were falling behind – the others kept a certain distance to Peter whose stench was abysmally bad. "How come you can stand being around me, Sarah?" he asked puzzled. She smiled. "We're friends – that's what friends do!" She beamed at him and removed an overlooked leaf from his shoulder. "Frankly speaking, I have smelled things worse than you." They laughed together.

The team stopped next to a big tree. Tom chose Jessica for the next game, since she was the only one yet to play. She batted her eyes at Jareth and jumped at a chance to prove herself. She took a fighting stance – fists in the air, ready to fight. "I'm ready for whatever you might throw at me, gov!" she yapped in a shrill, excited voice. Jareth smirked and tapped at the tree. A hidden door sprung up immediately. "Three minutes!" Jareth yelled good naturedly to her back as she rushed in. The team wasn't able to see her progress, but they chanted encouraging messages.

"You are aware she cannot hear you, aren't you?" Jareth asked after some time. He was massaging his temple. Sarah shrugged, not willing to stop chanting – especially not, if it annoyed Jareth.

"She might feel it," Tom answered. "It's silly, yes, but it's to let her know we are rooting for her."

Jareth shook his head. "But she _cannot hear you,_" he said in a slow manner to make sure he was understood. No one responded. "Imbeciles," Jareth muttered.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT - AMERICA<strong>

_The inside of the tree is as small as the outside and the red headed girl is standing on a pair of gnarly, green hands that sprouts from the inside of the tree. In fact, there are hands everywhere, at her calves, her hips, at her shoulders and many, many above the young girl. The tree seems remarkably tall from the inside. She tries to turn, but is hold fast by the hands and is only able to crane her neck. Something shining can be seen 9 yards in the air – another green hand is firmly gripping the crystal. The redhead tries to climb towards it by grabbing on to hands above her, but she is stuck._

_"I can't reach it!" she moans. A particularly big hand tightens it grip around her waist. She starts to kick and scream, but the hold never budges._

_"You have one minute left." The host's voice echoes within the hollow tree._

_Alarm shines in the young woman's eyes and after unsuccessfully trying to worm out of the tight grip once more she yells: "LET GO OF ME!" _

_Over her head three hands forms a face with their fingers. "You heard her," a strange voice says. "She chose dooown!"_

_"Nonono don't let go! I didn't mean it!" she protested as the hands all let go of her._

_"To late now," a second strange voice chortles._

_The camera shows the horror of the teammates outside the tree as the only thing audible is Jessica's frightened scream._

_"Jessica!" they shout._

* * *

><p><em>(AN): Sorry, sorry, sorry - This is a **very** short chapter (again, I know, heh!), but to compensate the next chapter (which will be uploaded tomorrow) will be far longer. Thanks for reading and reviewing!_


	12. Chapter 12

**THE SEVENTH GAME**

"So far, you are doing horrendously. Six games down, four contestants left and only one crystal." Jareth said in a patronizing manner that Sarah found insufferable. "But," he continued. "You still have time. So, who's next?"

Tom looked over at Sarah. "It's Sarah's turn, I think." Sarah still felt strange after Jessica had been locked in, the horrific blood curdling scream had definitely affected her. She couldn't imagine what had happened inside the tree, but she hoped with all her power that Jess was alright. "Sure," she said shakily. She would be next. She could do this.

"Lead the way," she told Jareth, who raised an eyebrow, but motioned to a door.

She entered the room quietly, although it turned out not to be a room on the inside. It looked exactly like the forest she'd just left. It was dark and glittery and Sarah's challenge was not easy to spot. She was alone.

She walked on for a bit until she reached a bonfire. "Oh no," she moaned. "Anything but _them_!" She heard the telltale sound of sticks being beaten against each other and loud cries. She started running, but out of nowhere the red fireies popped up, blocking her way. She shrieked loudly and continued the other way.

"Chilly down, lady! Don't freak," one said. "You can chilly down with us," another said. "Yeah, just let us take your head off!"

Sarah didn't want to stay for the musical number once again and so she ran until she saw a big wall in the middle of nowhere, like the one where Hoggle had showed up and helped her last time. But no Hoggle were to be seen. There was a rope, like last time, and Sarah felt it natural to climb it in order to escape from the wild, red creatures. She scaled the rope insanely fast until she made it to the top. A crystal was lying on the ground and Sarah grabbed it.

She realized she had to get down again and fight the creepy wild gang off. An involuntary sigh escaped her lips. One hand on the rope and the other on the crystal she scaled down slowly. The crystal was heavy and her hand was sweaty.

A familiar, infuriating voice called out the standard, "One minute left." Sarah huffed in frustration. "You better hurry, precious," the voice gloated in a softer purr.

Sarah was muttering some very unflattering thing about Jareth until her feet reached the forest ground. "The screamy lady wants to play with us!" a screeching voice declared and red, hairy arms reached out for her and pulled on her green suit. "Get off of me!" she shouted and ran, but the creature's arm stuck on to her legs. "Let's play, lady!"

Sarah stopped suddenly and a fire appeared in her green eyes. "Sure," she said sweetly. "Let's play croquet!" she yelled and yanked off the arm. The arm ripped off a piece of the suit fabric just above her knee, but she didn't notice as she swung it against another firey's head.

Armed with the arm she ran as fast as she could towards the door and opened it fumblingly. She shut the door firmly behind her and one of the creature's feet were caught between the door and the doorframe. Realizing she hadn't let go of the arm she threw it as far away as she could throw and bent down in order still her heart and normalize her breathing.

"Jeez," Sarah said and leaned on a nearby tree for a couple of seconds, catching her breath. "That was tough! I'm definitely not fifteen anymore!" Peter asked her if she needed any help and she shook her head. "I'm fine," she said to calm him. He patted her shoulder and she smiled up at him.

Sarah glanced over at Jareth, who looked like he just had eaten something very sour. Sarah wasn't sure whether it was because she won the round or because she was talking to Peter.

When she was breathing normally once more, she went over to Jareth and dropped the crystal into his palm. He looked at her completely dispassionately. She was a bit confused, but didn't really care. He left the crystal in the small drawer by the door without a word.

Jareth turned to the four contestants. "Two crystals. Well done," he said. Then he pointed to a stony path. "Follow that path to the next part of the Crystal Maze. I will be waiting for you later on – if you manage to get so far, that is." And with that, Jareth disappeared in a burst of smoke and glitter and left them to fend for themselves.

"Okaay," Tom said. "I guess we're on our own. Come on," he led the way down the path. John followed him closely. Sarah and Peter were in the back.

"You meant what you said earlier about us being friends, right?" Peter asked after some moments of silence. Sarah shrugged and looked at him searchingly. "Yeah. Sure."

"You are… so kind and sweet, Sarah. You are so sincerely interested in helping everyone and you never put yourself first. I haven't known you for long, but I'm glad I met you – You are the first person I've ever met that believes in me. The bridge proved that." His kind, brown eyes spoke plainly. He stared at her as if he was enchanted by her.

He leant in and gently kissed her cheek. Sarah's eyes widened – not because of the kiss, as one might imagine, but because she couldn't help but remember what had happened 7 years prior when she had kissed Hoggle's cheek. If the Goblin King was jealous enough of her friendship with Hoggle to send them to the Bog, then _how _wouldn't react to this? "Stop, Pe-"

The earth was rumbling beneath their feet. "Oh no," she breathed.

"What's happening?" Peter was panicking.

Tom yelled that they should grab on to something, but before they could, the stony path curled in on itself and formed a tunnel, a steeply downward sloping tunnel. The group had nothing to hold on to so they slid down the newly formed shaft. Sarah tried to catch on to the sides of the tunnel, but it was too slippery.

The slide came to a sudden end, and everyone tried to catch on to the rocky wall they suddenly were at. Sarah didn't even have to react on the smell surrounding them to know– she already knew exactly where they were.

"The Bog of Eternal Stench," she muttered.

Around her the team was reacting badly to the sudden atrocious smell and struggled to hang on to the cliff side. "Don't let go!" Sarah shouted. "Don't fall into the water!"

The four of them helped each other to find safe places to stand on the cliff side and inched their way over it.

The Bog looked exactly like it had all those years ago – except from one important detail. The bridge across was still crumbled and Sir Didymus was nowhere to be seen. If this truly meant that they were in the Labyrinth, as it seems, then Didymus was hopefully together with Hoggle and Ludo in a less smelly place.

There was no longer any bog water beneath them, instead there was solid ground. The contestants jumped the short way down and most of them landed on their feet. Peter landed face first in the dirt. "It's always me, isn't it?" he grumbled. Sarah reached out her hand, but he refused to lean on it. "I can manage."

"What is that smell? Is it that lake it's coming from?" Tom asked with his face all scrunched up. John was covering his nose with his big, paw like hand. "It smells bad," John pointed out.  
>"Yes." Sarah replied to both of them. She looked at the Bog with distaste on her face. "I've been here before. If you get even the slightest bit wet you'll smell bad forever." She turned around to look at Peter with a grin on her face. "I was talking of this, when I said I had smelled things worse than cabbage."<p>

"Why didn't you say you'd been in this show before?" Peter looked at her grumpily – he was still put out from the landing.

"I haven't! I've been to… Jareth's hometown, let's call it that, and they have a bog like this. It must be a replica," she lied. She wasn't ready to tell them about the Labyrinth. She doubted Peter would believe her anyway.

Tom was looking around searching for a way to continue. "Look!" he pointed at an old, rotten wooden canoe tied to a nearby tree. "I guess we continue by boat."

Peter backed slowly. "I'm not going into that water," he said determinedly. "Boat or no boat." He bumped into John, but didn't apologize.

"Sarah can I talk to you in private?" Peter disappeared into a nearby cluster of trees – Sarah apologized to the others and joined him there. "What the hell is this program? We could have died back there!" He was angry and frustrated. Sarah was surprised at this – up until now he had only been changing between being calm or slightly scared. "It was not supposed to be like this!" he ranted. "I want to go back to just being a gardener and tend my flowers – I'm not the sort of person who should be in this game. I'm so incredibly scared, Sarah!" She reached out to touch him, but he stepped back. Refusing to look at her.

"And then, back there, I finally felt like I had gained enough courage to kiss you on the cheek and did it, then the world collapsed beneath our feet. If that isn't a sign, then what is?" He was sighing and Sarah didn't know what to say. He suddenly looked back up at her again. "You clearly didn't want that kiss. It's because of him, isn't it?" Now Sarah backed a bit. "You say you hate him, but you deliberately goat him. You ignore him a lot I've noticed, but when he suddenly decides to ignore you, then you seem almost sad. And now you say that you've been to his home town… I can't compete. I'm ordinary and easy to scare. How could I ever _think..._" he trailed off softly.

"Peter!" she was really upset now. "You know that's not true." She didn't care about Jareth at all. She hated him and wanted to beat him at his own game, this. What he was saying wasn't true and she wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him out of whatever mood he was in. His fear obviously made him lash out, and she also wanted to calm him. He didn't let her come close and shook his head.

"Anyway, I'm too scared to continue," he whispered. Then he continued with a loud shout. "I wish to forfeit!"

"No, Peter. We need you!" Sarah protested, but before she could persuade Peter to change his mind an unseen door far away opened and Simon stepped out and waved Peter over. Sarah could vaguely see the set behind him. "Huh," she breathed. Apparently they weren't in the Labyrinth after all. "I don't get this at all!" she said and ran a flat palm over her hair.

Peter left her with only a single glance over his shoulder.

* * *

><p>"Peter you coward," she muttered quietly to herself. She hadn't moved in quite some time.<p>

"You must admit that you have a knack for drawing in the same types," an amused voice said in her ear. The wisps of his hair tickled her cheek, but she refused to appear affected by him. Besides, the insufferable man had pointed the thing out she was thinking herself. "He is nothing like Hoggle," she denied in a confident tone.

"Isn't he now?" he droned and grazed his lips on her ear. She shuddered involuntarily.

She turned around to face him, but she was alone.

She sighed, squared her shoulders and went out to Tom and John to tell them the news.


	13. Chapter 13

**THE EIGHTH GAME **

Toys, notebooks, garden gnomes and rusty lamps floated around in the murky waters. The unnecessary objects were in the way of the boats that continuously bumped into them. The further they rowed, the more the team's path was blocked by toy trains, doll's heads and smashed Gameboys. The boats were stopping to a halt – the water was waning and a shore made by forgotten and ruined objects were in front of them. The smelly bog was at its end. Tom jumped up first and gave Sarah his hand. She thanked him and sent him a grateful, but maudlin smile. It hurt Sarah that Peter had left. She hated being the one that was left behind, but she found it to be a recurring theme in her life and had grown used to it.

When Sarah was up from the boat, Tom offered his hand to John. Sarah looked at Tom and decided to offer her hand to John as well. Together they hauled the heavier man securely up from the small boat. John grunted as thanks.

"You took your time," Jareth's cultured voice called out haughtily from behind them. They all turned around and found their strange host standing right behind them. "One, two, three..." Jareth mock-counted them. "Oh my, it seems that one of you are missing. Did poor Pedro fall into the Bog of Eternal Stench?" he tilted his head and pursed his lips like he was concerned. Sarah could only focus on the way his eyes lighted up. He was practically bouncing internally with joy.

"_Peter _forfeited," Sarah stated simply in a dull voice. Jareth's mouth curved.

"_Oh no_! How... _tragic_." Sarah looked over at Tom and John, who seemed to take in Jareth's words as genuinely meant. How could they not see straight through him? His voice was practically laced with sarcasm. "What happened, Sarah?" Jareth drawled in a low voice. "Lovers' tiff?" Sarah was about to tell him to mind his own business, when she felt someone grab her arm firmly, signalling her to stand down. It was Tom.

"Isn't it time to continue on to the next game?" Tom asked. Sarah was really greatful for his thougtfulness.

"Quite right," Jareth said coldly and turned around swiftly. "Follow me."

* * *

><p>Jareth stopped after some time and asked who's turn it was. Tom had stepped forward.<p>

Sarah had thought Tom sounded very insecure, but she understood him very well. They had started out as six contestants, now – just a tad more than halfway through the show – and their numbers had dwindled to three. Sarah smiled encouragingly at him. He could do this.

Jareth nodded quietly to Tom, without any comment or joke or banter, which Sarah found strange. Jareth seemed withdrawn for once, for some reason. Sarah couldn't help but feel uneasy.

They were standing in front of the eighth challenge – for once, the challenge didn't take place in a room that the other contestants couldn't look in on. They stood in front of a picket fence that was so very old, that the paint was scaling of. In the middle of the fence there was a small gate – the kind Sarah associated with cottages belonging to old ladies. In this case, though, the only thing behind the gate was an enormous pile of junk. And a crystal on the top.

"You have three minutes, starting when I close the gate."

Jareth opened the gate and Tom stepped through it.

"You can do it, Tom," Sarah cheered softly. The gate closed behind him.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – AMERICA <strong>

_The strawberry blond man slowly climbs the pile and catches hold to an old pair of roller skates. He pulls himself up and rests his left foot on a book on origami. He sighs and grunts softly, but hauls himself halfway there in almost no time. He grabs hold to a hot pink platform shoe, but it's loose and he manages to pull it out. "Aaah," he screams as he is thrown out of balance and struggles to find something else to grab on to that's fixed._

_He manages to climb a few yards further up until he grabs the corner of a painting (of a kitten), which falls down as well. The junk heap skids and a part of it falls down around him._

"It's almost like he's playing jenga!" Toby said to himself.

"Oh, I got hair curlers like those!" Karen pointed to the corner of the screen, but her family was too distracted by the television to listen.

_He continues to climb onwards, even though the heap has changed it shape because of the fallen objects. He crawls into the cave-like hole he has made by pulling out the painting, and continues to crawl upwards from the inside._

_"_You have one minute left,_" the host calls out from the other side of the fence. The camera cuts to show Sarah and John leaning on the fence. Sarah's fingers are tightening their grip around a plank, probably because the man has moved inside the junk mountain and is out of their view. The big man in the orange suit looks concerned as well, but he is characteristically silent._

_The camera cuts back to the man clawing his way through the heap. He is nearing his target, but has to move a wooden box above his head out of his path in order to reach the crystal. Clearly, the box is too heavy for him, because it lands hard on his left arm. He screams out in pain. _

"I'm right! It's just a giant game of jenga!" Toby proclaimed, one eye shut in a wince with sympathy pain. "He chose the wrong piece," he explained to his mom.

Karen covered her mouth in horror. "Oh dear!"

_"Tom, are you alright?!" a female voice calls out in terror._

"This _can't_ possibly be a game show," Robert murmured. "We would never show violent stuff like this over here, I can't imagine them showing it in England, either. But if it's not a game show, _what_ is this then?"

Toby clasped Karen's hand, while he was perched on the edge of his seat on the sofa. "Be careful, Tom!" he yelled.

_The man tries to remove the box by pushing it away with his unhurt arm, but it gets him nowhere. Sweat pops out on his brow and he tries to push it away, one final time, and succeds. The box crashes into a wall, causing the entire heap to shake and rumble. Terror is obvious on the hurt man's face._

_The camera shows the junk heap from the outside - it sways dangerously from side to side and collapses on itself, effectively burying the man within._

_"TOM! NO!" the dark haired girl yells from behind the fence. _

_The camera shows the big man's shocked face, the girl screaming and kicking and the strangely dressed host holding on to her._

_"Let me go, I've got to get in there and get him out!" she shouts and kicks his shin. He bites his lip, but holds her fast._

_"I can't let you do that, Sarah. The time is used up and he didn't come out. He's locked in." He tightens his grip on her and she stills.  
>"But he could be dead! Maybe he's dying because he isn't helped!" A tear is on the verge of running down her cheek, but her concern isn't enough to soften her eyes. Her eyes are hard as jewels and she stares with unabashed hatred straight into the host's strange eyes. <em>

_"You always did have cruel eyes, Sarah," he whispers in a sincere fashion, his voice a tad deeper than usual._

_"Perhaps it's because you always bring out the cruelty in me." She stares at her feet and it is only then that she seems to realize her hands still are on his chest after hitting him. She folds her arms across her chest and coughs awkwardly. _

_"Tom is a good person. An honestly good man, that brings out the goodness in others. In me. Let me get him, he doesn't deserve to be abandoned like this," her eyes are pleading and completely watery now._

_"There are certain rules to these games and they cannot just be ignored. He entered this willingly. You all did. Percy was allowed to forfeit, but once _you_ begun, you had no choice but to continue through all the games until you made it to the end or all of you were out of action."_

_She doesn't seem to have a retort, but she continues to look at him the same way. A fat tear falls and leaves a wet trail down her cheek. He flicks it away with a gloved finger in a strangely intimate fashion._

* * *

><p>Jareth let go of the stunned Sarah suddenly. "I will make sure he is taken care of, Sarah," he said in an almost kind voice. "Focus on the rest of the games – you will need focus if only two persons are to complete five games on their own. Even if the champion of the Labyrinth is one of those two."<p>

Sarah smiled slightly at the sound of an almost-compliment from his lips.

"You better take good care of him," she cautioned, but she smiled a bit. For once in their acquaintance she actually believed something he'd said. He sounded so sincere for once.

Sarah felt, more than saw Jareth disappear in a storm of glitter that swept over the fence.

John's jaw was practically on the floor.

"Come on, John. We have to continue, Tom would have wanted us to. Let's conquer this bloody maze for Tom, Jess and Kate."


	14. Chapter 14

**THE NINTH GAME**

They ground beneath them was uneven because of the many objects. It was basically everything ranging from oven mitts shaped as foxes to yo-yos of every color. Sarah commented on some of the things, but John only made small noises to signal that he was listening.

"You don't talk a lot, do you?" Sarah asked amused, after they had spent half an hour like this. John hadn't said a word since Tom's disappearance.

"No."

The word was delivered completely straight-faced, but Sarah couldn't help but break out in laughter. John chuckled along with her. Sarah though that John's chuckle was sweet and didn't fit his appearance at all – to her it sounded like water tickling over rocks. His chuckle made her laugh harder, and she found herself relaxing in John's unassuming, but strong presence. She could see why Jessica had wanted to be close friends with John and as they continued to walk, Sarah began to tell John about herself and her life before the game show, while John simply listened.

They didn't know where the next game was, but soon after Sarah felt a sharp sense of deja-vu swipe over her. "I've been here before," she murmured.

Sarah recognized the hunched over figure waiting for them in the distance. It was standing by a house made out of junk. It was the junklady from her last visit. "Well hello, dearie! Long time no see," she said in her scratchy voice. "Come in, come in, dear! You have three minutes to find the crystal," she said.

Sarah sensed that there was no use in arguing with her. It was her turn, whether she liked it or not. Before entering the ninth game she gave John a big hug. "If I don't come out of there in three minutes, get the hell out of here. Jareth said we couldn't leave, but give it a try. You've seen what happened to Tom, Kate and Jess. Don't let it happen to you as well." John returned the hug and patted her back consolingly.

"You can do it."

Sarah drew in a big gulp of air. "Thanks." She followed the junk lady in with a brave smile.

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – AMERICA<strong>

"You can do it, sis! I know you can!" Toby cheered. He was a bit scared – Sarah had looked concerned, but he knew that if anyone could beat the Crystal Maze it would be his big sister

_The dark haired woman walks into the room with little surprise on her face, even though the room is a great contrast from the dark and glittery junkyard. They stand in a girly bedroom filled to the brim with teddy bears, theater posters, make-up and fairytale books. _

"Bu-what! That is Sarah's bedroom! How-?" Robert could barely complete a sentence out of surprise, but Karen could.

"It is! But it hasn't looked like that in ages." She looked to Toby. "Not since Toby was a baby."

_"I know, I know. This is all junk, I shouldn't cling on to it – and I don't! I outgrew this stuff years ago."_

_The hunchbacked lady with the gnarly face and the mountain of stuff on her back smiled scathingly._

_"You haven't outgrown all of it, dearie. You aren't nearly as grown up as you think. But that's another matter." She looked expressionlessly at Sarah. "Something in here will lead you to the crystal. I'll give you a hint: I'd like to get my hands on _his _goods," she hoots._

"What does she mean?" Toby asked, but his parents ignored his question.

_The girl looked repulsed. "Let me just say: "ew!" and leave it there. I'm not going to think about that. _Gross_. This is so not the same Labyrinth as last time."_

"Last time? What does she mean? I thought she hadn't been in the show before?" Karen asked Robert.  
>Robert shook his head in confusion. "If this is a game show at all," he pointed out.<p>

_"But I'm guessing you're talking about my Goblin King statue?" the girl says with calculation in her eyes. "Where did I put it?" she mutters and starts to run around in the room, pulling things down from shelves and digging in the closet and opening the desk drawers. "On the bed, perhaps?" _

_She jogs over to the bed and searches through the pile on top of it. Nothing. Then she strips away the bulky linen and gasps at the glittery figurine on her bed. It is a toy figurine of a blue skinned man with puffy blue hair, styled in the same fashion as the host's. The figure is dressed in tight breeches and leather jacket and holds a crystal in its hand. She picks it up reverently, but she seems distrustful of it at the same time. She touches the crystal, but it is stuck and nothing happens. Then she turns the figurine over in her hands. On the bottom there's a note attached. She tears it off and opens it._

Follow the white rabbit, _it says. She throws the figurine back on the bead and bounds over to the fantasy books in a rack on a table. She grabs her copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ and paws through it._ _She finds a note between two pages. _Play with me_, it says. She throws her hands on the air and groans in frustration. "Isn't that what I'm already doing," she mutters through gritted teeth. She tears open the lid to every game in the room._

"No, Sarah! _Play_! Look at the POSTERS!" Toby yelled, while kicking his feet wildly.

"Toby!" Karen admonished. Robert looked sternly at his son. "She can't hear you, son."

_Sarah looks vacantly into the air and hits her face with her palm. "Play!" She rips down her theater posters one for one. One word is written on each poster. "Down" is visible on _Evita_, "the World" is on _Cats _and "Falls" is on _Phantom of the Opera. _She fumblingly makes it over to the music box on her table. It is shaped as a gazebo and inside there's a dark haired girl dressed in a fluffy white ball gown._

"I remember that music box." Robert's face contorted. "Linda gave her that one before she left for New York."

_She turns it over, gently. There isn't any note on the bottom, and she groans in frustration. She turns to the forgotten junk clad lady. "How much time left?"_

_The ugly creature thinks for a couple of seconds. "Um… 16 seconds. No, wait, 15."_

_The young woman's eyes nearly pops out of her head. "What?!" she yells indignantly, shakes her head and throws herself back to the music box, but doesn't find anything. She throws her hands in the air again and goes back to the door, ready to forfeit the crystal. As she opens the door violently, a globe falls down from the shelf to her left._

"The world fell down!" Toby shrieked. Karen shushed him again.

_She catches it before it hits the ground and twists the globe apart at the equatorial belt._

_"2 seconds," is heard from the corner. Sarah grabs the crystal within the globe with shaking hands and launches herself out of the open door. Seconds before landing on the hard ground she is caught by strong looking arms. _


	15. Chapter 15

**THE TENTH GAME**

**PRESENT – AMERICA **

_"Thanks John. You're a lifesaver," she says thankfully as she stands on her own again. The big man in the orange suit pats her arm friendly._

_She deposits the crystal in a little drawer by the door. The man and the girl continue onward until they reach a stone cave. They look around them, but they are completely alone. "I guess this is your challenge, John." The girl looks up at the man, who simply shrugs (although his face betrays his distress) and waddles inside the stone cave._

_The big man in the orange suit enters a small room filled with rocks. He has to get to the crystal at the back of the room, but the rocks are in his way. He has to move the rocks to the sides and make a path to the crystal and he begins immediately. He is strong, but the stones are heavy. He has managed to clear half the way, when the elusive host's voice warns him that he only has one minute left. He cries out in frustration – he'll never get to the crystal in time. At the sound of his voice the stones rumble slightly._

_"What?" he cries bewildered. The stones rumble again. Apparently this amuses him – or perhaps it is out of nervousness –because suddenly the otherwise silent man breaks out first in chuckles and then in a full-blown roaring laughter. The rocks jump and roll at the sound of his voice and rearrange themselves neatly at the sides of the room, clearing a path for him. With plenty of seconds left he grabs the crystal and runs out of the room, still roaring with laughter._

_He is holding up the crystal in front of his face, when the dark haired girl comes over to congratulate him. His eyes widen as he sees his own reflection. The girl is curious and looks at it over his shoulder. She catches a small glimpse of a beast with the same color fur as the man's suit within the orb. "Ludo?" she asks in a small voice. "But, how-?"_

_They turn to face each other and she seems to recognize something within the big man's warm, brown eyes. "You remind me about him a lot," she says dazedly, directed at the man. "But why is Ludo inside the crystal?" She reaches out for the crystal and the man hands it over. The girl turns it over in her hands and studies it. When she looks into the orb it reflects a pouting, dark haired girl with sorrow filled green eyes. "That's me. But…" She looks at her companion, but shakes her head. "No. Never mind. My mind _or Jareth_," she mutters the last bit mutinously, "must be playing tricks on us. I'm just being silly, he couldn't possibly have been in there." She waves off her previous concern._

"I understand zip of what just happened," Robert said confused. The rest of the Williams family looked just as puzzled as Robert. "Is this a science fiction movie, or what?" he sighed resignedly.

_After placing the crystal in a drawer next to the door, the strange pair of friends walks away. The man experimentally makes different sounds to see if the rocks around him react. The girl doesn't seem to realize it though; she is too preoccupied with her own thoughts._

_"Look! Over there! It's the Goblin City," she proclaims and points her finger, after some time, as she notices a big metal gate in the distance. "I suppose the final face-off is at castle at the center of the Labyrinth… Like last time." A hint of fear is visible on her face and she grabs her companion's hand._

_"We're almost there!" she lets go of his hand and jumps a bit ahead so she better can scout ahead. The man left to his own devises stops up, and before he knows it a secret trap door is opened beneath him. The man is swallowed by the earth. _

_"We can do this, John, we only have three games left now!" she says excitedly as she turns around to face her friend. Who has disappeared into thin air. "John? John!" she calls out in a sad voice. _

_"Another thing he has in common with Ludo!" she mumbles bitterly and then looks heavenwards. "Wherever you are, Goblin King, you better take good care of _all_ my friends!" she demands. _

_She looks at her feet, sighs and says, "Well, come on feet!" and begins to walk. _

_She doesn't seem to hear the faint, but sinister laugh that follows her on her journey and before long she marches alone through the gates to the Goblin City with her head held high._

* * *

><p><strong>PRESENT – AMERICA <strong>

In the Williams family's living room the light suddenly went out. Robert got up from his seat and looked out the window. "The power has gone in the entire block." He flipped a switch, but nothing happened. "Power's completely gone," he murmured. He looked back at his family – Karen had gone to fetch candlesticks and matches, Toby was still watching television. "How come the TV is still on?" he pondered, scratching his neck.

"Come back, Dad! Sarah has reached the castle!"

* * *

><p><em>(AN): I think this was the hardest chapter to write so far. I'm not really pleased with it. Buut - the next chapter is worth it. And far longer._


	16. Chapter 16

**THE CASTLE**

Sarah had come through the gates with no trouble. She hadn't expected getting through the city would be easy as well. The City was completely abandoned, not a single goblin was to be seen. Sarah swore she even saw tumbleweed crossing the road in front of her, probably just to mock her. She made it to the castle without encountering a single soul. She pushed the huge metal castle doors open, using her body weight as leverage.

She couldn't help but feel fifteen years old again as she stood there in the castle halls.

Last time she had gone right, which had led her directly into the throne room. This time she would go straight ahead down the long, stair cased corridor. The castle was drafty and Sarah felt chilled to the bone. She hugged herself in an attempt to get warmer.

"The next door on your right," a squeaky voice told her. Sarah looked around trying to find the owner of the voice, but she couldn't find him until she felt a tug on her trouser leg. At her feet she saw an ugly, little, grey goblin with a casserole on its head. "Three minutes!" he said in a very serious voice. Sarah couldn't help but smile. "Thank you," she answered politely, drew in a big breath and reached for the doorknob.

* * *

><p><strong>THE ELEVENTH GAME<strong>

**AMERICA - PRESENT**

_The dark haired girl enters an enormous room with wonder painted all over her face. The room is opulent and draped with fine fabrics in white and peach. Amazing crystal chandeliers are floating in the air and grand, off-white staircases with golden rails are in the back. There's a peach colored cushion pit in the floor and several tables lined up at the sides of the room. The girl is taken aback, but it is clearly not because of the grandeur, since her gaze only falls on the scatter of debris on the floor. Torn napkins, broken wineglasses and grotesque masks that seems to have been trampled on. One of the chandeliers over her head is dangling dangerously. She turns around, but the blue door behind her is gone. The only thing there is a thick, crystal wall. _

_"Damn."_

_A small pop is heard and her dark hair is briefly blown into her face and with a resigned expression she turns around slowly to gaze behind her. The host is now standing in the middle of the previously empty room._

_"What am I supposed to do to get a crystal?" she asks him in a tired voice. "Dance with a goblin? Mop the floor?" she baits. _

_The host seems to ponder it for a second. "I _knew _I should have forced you to clean up the mess you left in here," he snaps his fingers. "Oh, well. What's done is done."_

_The girl crosses her arms and glares at him. The host smiles briefly and puts out his right hand. "I've brought you a gift." His palm is empty. He waves his left hand over it, and a crystal forms in between. "If you turn it this way," he turns the crystal around sharply, "it will show you your dreams."_

_"Thank you," she says testily and reaches out for it._

_"Ah ah ah!" he moves the crystal out of her reach. "You will have to work for it." _

_The girl cocks her eyebrow in a challenge and he rolls the crystal from hand to hand. With a twist of a wrist another crystal appears and then a third. He juggles them and then twirls the three of them in one hand with deft fingers._

_"Tell me which crystal shows your dream," he challenges her as he twirls them once again only to throw them at her. They stop a few inches from her face, suspended in the air. She twitches but stands her ground and doesn't take a step back._

_The three identical spheres float around her face in circles._

_"I believe I neglected to tell you that this is an automatic lock-in game? How forgetful of me." It is said with a hint of venom in his voice and a smirk on his face. "If you choose the wrong crystal, I'm afraid you will have to stay in here indefinitely." Her jaw drops in indignation and she opens her mouth, about to berate him. "Ah," he says and waves a finger in her face. "You will have plenty of time for temper tantrums when you've lost. Go do your heroics instead." He tuts at her and she bites her lip and narrows her eyes, but apparently agrees with his assessment, since she doesn't fight him openly. "Damn you Jareth," she mutters and continues self-depreciatively in a soft tone. "And damn me too." _

_The three crystals floating in rounds around her face look identical at first glance, but they are not. A soft and haunting melody comes from the first sphere in front of the girl. A small scene plays out within, two figures dancing – One dressed in blue and a shorter one in a big, white dress – twirling around a ballroom much like the one the girl and the strange man are in. They are completely alone and the shorter figure, a young girl with big dark hair, gaze lovingly up at the blond man. He stops the dance, bows to her and leans in for a kiss._

_The real version of the dark haired girl is staring wide eyed and disturbed at the vision. She chooses to turn to the next crystal._

_In the second crystal a dark haired girl is wearing a period dress and heavy stage makeup. Her arms are filled with flowers and boxes with chocolate. A blissful smile is on her face and it turns into a radiating grin of sheer, unadulterated joy as she is embraced by an older woman who looks very much like her. "I'm so proud of you, Sarah!" The older woman exclaims. "You look just like I did so many years ago. My little girl!"  
>"Thank you, Mom!" A tear of joy runs down a painted cheek. Clicking is heard as the moment is immortalized by the cameras around them.<em>

"But that's Linda! How is that even possible?!" Robert cried. He was stunned at the appearance of his ex-wife in the television show. Karen and Toby shushed him.

_The tip of the girl's nose almost brushes against the crystaline surface. Her eyes are watery but her lips are pressed together in determination. She unconciously shakes her head and turn to the last crystal._

_The sound that issues from the third crystal is very different from the second's clicking sounds. It's childrens' laughter. This crystal shows the dark haired girl, now older, fuller and with hints of crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. She has a cute little girl on her lap and a small boy at her feet. She has reading glasses on and reads them a story about fantastic creatures. A handsome man with dark hair enters the room, kisses her and pats the children's heads fondly.  
>"It's time for bed, scamps," the woman says to the children with a smile. The boy tugs at the woman's sleeve. "But Mommy, what if there's a goblin under my bed?"<br>"Don't worry, honey," she kisses the boy's forehead. "Goblins don't exist." _

_The present dark haired girl, the one in the trashed ballroom, is moved to tears at these three visions and disbelief is plain on her face. She shakes her head and her lips form the word "no"._

_"You have one minute left to decide." The host glares intently on the girl as if the next word she utters is a matter of life and death._

_She is quiet for quite some time. "It's not here," she whispers then._

_His body relaxes all the previous tension and his shoulders slump down. He doesn't respond so she continues._

_"The first of them was a dream I outgrew long ago, just like my old bedroom. It was childish and rose tinted and if I got that dream now, I would be terribly bored with it. It changed when I actually met you, I think." She pauses and looks him square in the mismatched eyes. _

_"The second is a childhood fantasy. I know it won't happen. It would be false and sound hollow to me if it actually did. I'm not an actor and even if I were, I would never hear those words from my mom. I know it now. I've got something better than what my mom could offer: I've got a new mother now - one who is actually there and cares for me."_

Karen held her breath and flicked away a tear from her moist eyes. Robert looked confused, but proud.

_"The third… Is a wish for normalcy, I guess. You know, I like Peter a lot, but to marry him and settle down… Of course I want to have kids, but I want adventures too!" she smiles at something in her mind only she can see. "Your Labyrinth has spoilt me in that respect." She looks down at her feet. "Sure, sometimes it would be easier to think that goblins only exist in my mind. But I _want_ them to be real."_

_He approaches her slowly and in measured strides. He is close enough now, that she can reach him. _

_"Where is the crystal then, Sarah?" he purrs. Now he is so close to her that their noses almost touch._

_She scrunches up her nose in thought. His gaze flickers between her full lips and her distant eyes. Her eyes light up with sad realization. "We're in it. Aren't we?" she croaks._

_"Say it."_

_"My dreams are the Crystal Maze," she whispers. "You granted me my dreams – just like you did when you took away Toby." _

_"Clever girl," he breathes._

_"Oh my god, _I_ did this! Everything that has happened is _my_ fault. Tom, Kate, Jess, John… I didn't want anyone to be hurt, Jareth! I _don't_. I _wanted _to have something exiting happen, but I never thought that it would hurt others!"_

_Jareth cuts off her musings. _

_"You never _think_. That is the prevailing thing with you. You just barge in with your wish to help everyone – Sarah Williams the martyr. You don't seem to realize that it often is _your fault _that they are in a predicament in the first place."_

_Sarah hisses at him and punches him in the chest. He doesn't react at all._

_"Unlike last time I didn't ask you to do anything for me! Why would you grant my dreams? Why couldn't you just leave me alone?!" she shouts at him. _

_"I _can't _leave you alone!" he growls back and lunges towards her. She steps back, afraid that he wants to hurt her, but he captures her in his arms and kisses her soundly._

Toby hid behind his hands, torn between yelling "ew!" and watching because it seemed important somehow. Robert sat restlessly, obviously feeling very uncomfortable at watching this happen to his daughter.

_He rests his head on her hair. "I couldn't leave you even if I wanted to, Sarah," he breathes._

_She gasps for breath, struggles against him and steps out of the embrace._

_Her cheeks are flushed and she doesn't look him in the eye. Her voice is firm. "Did I win a crystal, then?" she demands._

_He conjures a crystal in his hands and shoves it – a tad violently – into hers. "It's been yours all along." His stare is scorching, but she doesn't look up. She turns around and leaves through the blue painted wooden door that has reappeared out of nowhere._

_He is left alone in the messy room with an unflattering, stricken expression on his face. He spins and disappears in a blast of glitter. _


	17. Chapter 17

**THE TWELTH GAME **

"Hello again, precious thing," the Goblin King's incorporeal voice purred with a slight touch of menace, as Sarah came to the end of a grand, but nondescript, stonewalled corridor, that looked exactly like the other three nondescript stonewalled corridors she had walked down for the last hour or so since the last challenge. "Hi," she answered inanely.

"This is your second to last game. You have three minutes to find the center of the room, where you'll have to kiss the sleeping prince to get the crystal. If you fail to get there in time, he will remain asleep… forever." Barking laughter resonated in the corridor.

He was such a drama queen in Sarah's opinion. But what did he mean with "prince"?

She entered the room quietly and found herself in a cabinet of mirrors. Wherever she looked, she saw her own reflection staring back at her. A young woman with tousled dark hair, green eyes, full mouth and oval face was in front of her, to her right and to her left. Her green suit was dirty and had a hole above the knee after a rough journey. She proceeded carefully, chanting over and over in her mind that this was easy – she had covered an entire labyrinth in ten hours – a mirror cabinet in three minutes should be a piece of cake.

She stretched out her arms in front of her and felt her way. The hardness of the mirrors beneath her fingers told her that they were solid. She followed the mirrors on her right side around a corner, where the mirrors had changed. The form and height was the same, but Sarah's reflection had changed. Tall Sarah, small Sarah, big Sarah, thin Sarah, inflated head Sarah, long legs Sarah and… normal Sarah. Every one of the mirrors' surfaces were solid, but something within Sarah told her to look closer at her normal reflection. After trying to pry it loose for a couple of seconds, she found a way to swing the door open. A triumphant smile graced her face. She made it into a different part of the mirror cabinet.

She was surrounded by her own reflections once again, but this time it was different. To her left she saw her 4-year old self and to her left herself at 15 wearing her white poet shirt and brocade vest. In the next mirror she was wearing her graduation gown and cap, in the next she could see she was ten years old, because she could recognize the awful haircut. She was surrounded by Sarahs in all ages. A crying 11-year old, the year her mother left. A wailing baby with tufts of dark hair. A dazzled version of herself, dressed in the giant marshmallow ball gown. As she proceeded down the rows of reflections she almost missed something strange. "Wait a minute! I don't have brown eyes!" she protested quietly and backed up to look at the strange reflection. It was her, from last year, because she was wearing her new favorite summer dress, but _it wasn't her_, because her mirrorself didn't have any curves and had unflatteringly big shoulders. She stared perplexed at her face for a couple of seconds. And her jaw dropped. "Peter?" she breathed disbelievingly.

When she recognized him by the slope of his nose, she wondered how she ever had been in doubt. He was wearing a long wig – and even though he didn't move (or _couldn't_) his eyes were pleading for help.

"This isn't even cruel, Goblin King – it's just plain insane!" she uttered in disbelief and tried to pry it open like last time.

"One minute left," Jareth's voice said mockingly.

Sarah's fingers shook and sweat was forming on her brow, when the mirror didn't budge beneath her fingers. She tried to touch the mirror – maybe her hand could pass through it? – but nothing happened. She placed her left palm on the mirror's surface and rested her weight against it.

"What can I do, what can I do!" she muttered in despair and leant up against Peter's reflection.

And – to her shock – the mirror spun. And she spun with it.

She was transported to the other side of the mirror, where the dressed up Peter stood unmoving in front of her. They were in a dark and clammy oubliette-y room. She gathered her wits and shook Peter softly. "Wake up!" she yelled. "We have to leave!"

She suddenly remembered what Jareth had told her: she had to kiss the prince. Peter wasn't a prince as far as she knew, but he was the only one there. It had to be him. She didn't want to kiss him on the mouth so she leant in to his cheek and pecked him softly.

She hadn't realized that he was pale until the color returned to his face and he began to move. "Sarah," he groaned softly. The first action he did, when he could move fully, was to cup the cheek she had kissed.

She looked into his puppy dog eyes and found, that she didn't want him to stare at her that way, but decided that now wasn't the time to figure out what he wanted from her. "Do you have the crystal?"

He patted down the dress and found a round bulge in the left pocket. He nodded and she grabbed him by the hand and backtracked her way through the mirror maze. "Come on, we only have a few seconds left!"

They bounded through the mirror corridors, and made it to the door and they threw themselves at it and landed on a dusty, cold stone floor. They were out.

They helped each other stand and brushed the dust off.

"Are you the only one left?" he asked in between pants. She nodded sadly and placed the crystal in a drawer by the door.

"Sarah, we _have_ to leave now! Something is horribly wrong with this place! It's not what it seems!" He insisted pleadingly. She nodded quietly. "I know," she whispered.

"No, you can't know! Look, this isn't a game show. It might have been – but it isn't any longer. I'm not sure what this is, exactly, but it's not a game show. It is very, very real." He grabbed her by the shoulders, fingers digging sharply into her flesh. Her lack of reaction must have alarmed him, because he launched into a long explanation.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, Sarah. I… I don't deserve that. But, just listen to me." He took in a deep breath.

"When I… left you, Simon and I went into his office. We talked about a lot of things and… and Sarah, I was so ashamed of myself! I'm just a stupid coward and I wasted the trust you had in me. I was filled with regret and said as much to Simon who seemed to feel pity for me. I wanted to do nothing but come back to the maze before the end and offer you my help. I wanted to come back to help you!" He sighed, when Sarah simply stood there, arms crossed, waiting to hear the end of his tale.

"He offered me tea and a slice of fruit pie (which looked totally delicious, by the way) but I couldn't get anything thing down, I told him. You know, he has been nothing but nice since the start, but he insisted almost in a panicking way, that I eat something. That was the first strange thing. He seemed almost bitter about it when I continued to refuse. I pulled myself together after that, told him I wanted to return to help you – but he wouldn't let me! He said I had forfeited every right (which I guess I had), but I wouldn't take no for an answer. I came to the game show to find bravery and I found you, my Dorothy," he said and glanced at her lovingly. She fidgeted a bit at the glance.

"I realized I'd been a horrible coward and rose suddenly to leave, which made my chair accidentally bump into the wall. And the wall just fell! The office was just a _backdrop, _Sarah! Simon's eyes began to glow red and he sort of shrank and then he tried to catch me. He looked like a troll, or something, out of the blue. He caught up with me and must have hit me with something, because I blacked out and woke up in that dank room you found me in. And Jareth was there. I asked him what had happened, but he didn't answer, he just glared at me like I was something nasty in his tea. He's not even that tall, but when he looks down at me I feel 3 inches tall and can't help squirming. I could swear that all his teeth were sharp when he growled at me. Brrrh…" he shivered at the memory.

"He said that because I wished to return to the game he would be generous and let you find me. And he," he puffed indignantly, "put me in this dress. I didn't even fight him, Sarah. His eyes seemed almost demonic!"

Sarah put a comforting hand on his bicep.

"We're in a strange place, Sarah. We should leave. _You_ should leave – he's after you," he continued pleadingly. "I know this might sound strange, but I think he can do magic – he made me fall asleep standing upright with just a wave of his hand. He's dangerous."

"Peter," Sarah said kindly and slowly. "Simon was probably a goblin. Jareth is the Goblin King and, yes, he does magic. I believe you. We're probably in his Labyrinth and this is the Castle at the center of the Labyrinth. His castle."

Peter was taken aback, but seemed to accept this as fact without argument. Sarah hadn't expected that.

"Well, okay. If you say so. Right on. You seemed to be the most capable one of us right from the start, so I'm just going to follow you blindly and do as you say," he declared and bowed before her jokingly, but his eyes were very serious. She laughed tensely, but patted him quickly on the shoulder to say that he was forgiven.

"But we can't leave, Peter," Sarah told him. "You know that better than me – you tried, and it led you straight back here. No, our best chance to get out of here in one piece is to finish the last game. Maybe we'll find out what happened to the others there. What we need to do is to beat Jareth at his own game."

"Once we begun we had no choice but to continue the game until we made it to the end," she added wisely, even though the words weren't her own.

"I guess that makes sense." Peter nodded and the decision to follow Sarah seemed to fill him with resolve.

"Let's go get that rat that calls himself Jareth," Peter bit out. Sarah turned her head violently at the familiar phrase. "What did you just say?"

"I'm a coward and Jareth scares me. You know, I didn't even fight when he put me in that dress. I just stood there and took it! I can't let him have that kind of power over me. I won't stand for it. _You _taught me that."

Sarah's eyes widened, but whatever realization she might have had about Peter disappeared as she thought about what he said. "You remind me of an old friend of mine," she said then. "He was afraid a lot too, but he overcame it through his friendship with me. I'm glad I could help you like that, as well." Her words were open and kind, but her eyes were guarded as she tried to figure out if there was more to Peter than what it seemed. The resemblance between him and Hoggle was uncanny at some points.

Sarah had an inkling about where the final game would be, so she led Peter determinedly back through the winding corridors back to the front door, where she went right and wound up at the empty and dirty throne room. She ran up the first steps of the small staircase on her left. Peter stayed back. She turned around, just like last time and looked him unwaveringly in the eye.

"This is something I have to do alone. Only one can enter the last game and I need to do it. I _want_ to do it." The truth in her words resounded in her head. She did want this. She felt excited, as wrong as it was.

"You can't go in there on your own!" Peter protested.

"Do you really want to have a face-off with the Goblin King wearing that dress?" she asked pointedly.

"Well, no. But," he continued. "I would, though, if it made you happy. I'd do anything for you." Sarah sighed and realized that if she were to have this conversation with him, it had to be now.

"Peter," she began and put a hand on his shoulder. "You are a really, really good friend. And I love you like a friend. But nothing more than that. I'm sorry." She hugged him and after thinking for a second he decided to hug her back.

"I'm not a repulsive little scab," Peter looked just as confused as Sarah did at the phrase he just had used, but he continued. "But I never thought we would… I mean _I hoped_, because you're you and you're lovely, but I knew nothing could happen. You're not for me. I get that." They stood together in an awkward silence for a moment until Sarah put on a brave smile and said, "I've got to go."

"If you need any help – don't hesitate to call. I'll be right here." Sarah's eyes widened again at the deja-vu. She decided to ignore her strange gut feeling for the time being and went up the stairs to the room, where everything ended the last time.

* * *

><p>(AN) the final face-off is moments away. What is Jareth? Is the crystal maze really Sarah's dream? And how will it all end? To be continued...


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